In 1989 while I was doing professional work I had a "resting period" and decided to mount my own opera.

After a feasibility study I gathered a few chorus members together from local singers I knew and found a conductor from where I had recently been performing, Alan Rankin Crooks as director and held auditions.

Some were professional soloists, some were good amateurs and mounted a production of Madama Butterfly (Madama because we performed it in Italian). The conductor Geoffrey Boyd reduced the orchestra score down to an affordable size. I and a helper - Dottie MacDonald (now sadly deceased) made all the costumes, and I made the scenery. I recruited the excellent services of Maggie and Alan Matthews as stage managers.

I funded the project from my own money and the local papers were very interested and gave us good coverage.

By the time the opera was over I had gathered such a good following both on and off stage that I was persuaded to continue with the company which I did for 18 years albeit with committee help after the first 5 years.

In 2007 I had decided I had had enough running the company and so John Guttridge who had been our Treasurer and latterly the Chairman offered to take over.

Now 2015 and John himself has decided he does not want to continue, so with no more volunteers, the company is sadly winding up.

These are grab shots of the website:

Home page

Unfortunately we don't have a copy of how it looked before we closed.

The committee after I dropped off

Our production Record

Page on each opera with photos and crits

For Tosca we received a millenium lottery grant to help pay our soloists, pay for a larger orchestra than we could normally afford, and to pay for the hire of the rifles and soliers uniforms.

Other activities:

Double take programme. operas and musicals based on the same story.

Our scenery for hire (this was ultimated donated to local amateur groups)